Pages

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Using my Basting Spray to Help Stencil

I found another use for my basting spray! It's not really what it's made for, but I thought I'd share this project with you anyway!

Our house has two doors, just around the corner from each other. Everyone gets confused as to which door to use and usually go to the door that opens into my kitchen/laundry room (which is not normally the room I want to bring them in through). We're trying to get the living room door designated as the door to come to and slowly it's working. The wreath I showed in the previous post helps, but I came up with another idea (from Pinterest!) to help as well. I saw an idea for spray painting welcome onto the porch in front of the door. I definitely wanted to do that here! I almost pulled out my coral spray paint but decided to go with something more neutral for whoever moves in after us.

But first I had to figure out stencils. I knew ordering a stencil was a possibility, but I hated to pay for something I was sure I could make for cheap on my own. I almost decided to draw it by hand until I realized the printer would be way easier. I pulled up Microsoft Publisher (but Word or Paint would work great as well!) and found a font I liked that would work well to turn into a stencil. I put each letter on a separate page and printed them out. This next bit was the slow part (but not horribly slow, just more than I wanted). I cut the letters out with an exacto knife, saving the little pieces to go in the inner parts of some of the letters (like the e). Next, I gathered my paint, some boxes to use to protect the rest of the porch, spray adhesive, and went to work.And here is where my basting spray came into play. I needed some way to stick the paper stencil to the concrete step. I had Elmer's permanent spray adhesive, but that leaves and awful residue and I didn't want dirt clinging to the step where the residue was. So in digging around my craft supplies I came upon my basting spray and knew it would be perfect! I sprayed the back of the paper and stuck it to the step (lining up the bottom of the paper on the bottom of the step so the letters would all be the same height).

I then did a quick coat of gray, and a quick coat of nickel to make it shiny and stand out better. I was nervous when I pulled off the paper, but it worked great!

On to the next letters. This font has the letters all connected (cursive), so I made sure the e overlapped a little onto the edge of the w when I stuck it to the step.

That worked great. I followed the same steps with each letter, being careful to not get paint beyond the edge of the paper. It turned out just right!

It doesn't stick out huge, but it's a fun little touch on the steps. I might try doing another layer maybe with gold, I think that'd stick out just a little better. But for now I love how this looks!

It does stick out beautifully when the steps are wet from the rain though!